


"happy" anniversary, kiran

by delhuillier



Series: Crucible [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Morph!Kiran, Other, genderless Kiran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 16:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14216886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delhuillier/pseuds/delhuillier
Summary: On the anniversary of Kiran's creation, Alfonse comes face to face with Kiran's future.





	"happy" anniversary, kiran

Alfonse finds Kiran exactly where he thought he would: sitting still and quiet on the window seat in their room in the near-darkness. He would’ve thought they were sleeping if he didn’t know better.

Breidablik rests in their ungloved hands, and in the moonlight flooding through the window it _glows_. It seems larger than life, fat and satisfied, gorged on light.

“Kiran?” he says softly. He lights the lamp on the bedside table with a cantrip Lilina taught him.

They look up, a measured movement with no wasted effort. Those strange golden eyes fall on him, and Kiran says, “Ah,” and then, “…Alfonse.”

“What are you doing up here by yourself?” Alfonse asks, for the sake of appearances. Kiran’s always like this when unneeded. As if they are a tool to be brought out when there is a use for them and stored when there isn’t.

“Nothing,” Kiran says simply, and they turn their face back towards the window as though the conversation is over and done.

Apart from the eyes and their unusually pale skin, Kiran is forgettable, plain. No feature on their face particularly stands out, and they have so little presence it’s as though they were designed to slip from your mind the moment you looked away, like water through cupped hands. Nothing about them suggests the Great Hero from legend.

But their appearance belies a tactical mind without peer, and a determination to defend Askr from enemies foreign and domestic so single-minded that it hews awfully close to obsession. And their powers beggar belief—they so easily pull Heroes back into life, performing the impossible act of resurrection, the very deed that escapes even the most powerful of mages.

Of course, Alfonse had no grounds to blame anyone for doubting Kiran, even now, for the first thought he had when he saw the Summoner was _Is this truly the one who will save Askr?_

He’d been quick to give himself excuses, to contrive justifications. When you heard the words _Great Hero_ , what came to mind was someone strong and self-assured, someone handsome or beautiful. Someone who would easily grasp the reins of Askr’s army and lead them all to victory. Not this insubstantial youth in a white-and-gold cloak, with features so fine they seem sketched on air.

Alfonse has done some reading since Kiran was created a year ago—has found books from the World of Blazing that tell of humanoid creatures with eyes of hypnotising gold, night-black hair, and the ashen complexion of a corpse. Morphs, artificial beings constructed from quintessence and defined by a purpose upon them bestowed by their creator.

He has his suspicions, now. Too much of it fits. Kiran’s black hair. Kiran’s pale, flawless skin, without blemish or scar. The _eyes_.

Though what to do with that information now that he has it is another issue altogether. In Alfonse’s mind, it ought to change nothing—Kiran is capable, and, unless Alfonse has missed his guess regarding what Kiran’s defining purpose is, _cannot_ be anything other than trustworthy.

Still, though, he thinks he’ll keep it to himself for now. With the threat of Surtr blazing on the horizon like a rising sun, they can’t afford any sort of internal conflict.

“Alfonse.”

The prince startles at Kiran’s voice, and with some effort, reels his mind back into the present. Kiran is looking at him—where humans would fidget, wind a lock of hair around their finger or tug at their sleeves or smooth out wrinkles in their tunic, Kiran simply sits, and sits, and watches. Like a statue. “Yes?”

“What do you want?”

There’s nothing antagonistic in the question, despite the blunt way Kiran phrased it. It’s a simple request for information, that’s all.

“Ah, yes,” Alfonse says, his smile the shallow, reflexive kind he learned to display while at court or in front of his father. “It has been a year since your arrival, Kiran. There is a celebration—nothing grand, of course, for this is still wartime, and we are in a foreign land. I came at my sister’s insistence to ask if you’d like to join us.”

That’s not exactly true, but close enough. There’s something else on Alfonse’s mind, too.

His smile becomes more natural. “You must admit that it is a little strange to have the guest of honour absent. Will you come? If only for a little while.”

“No.”

Alfonse chuckles softly. “Of course not,” he says. “Well, in that case—may I?”

Kiran adjusts their position on the bench, granting Alfonse room to sit beside them. They aren’t looking at him anymore, but at the drifts of snow luminous under the moon’s eye. 

Alfonse has always found Kiran’s silences to be comfortable. They demand nothing of him. There are times where all they’ve done together is share a quiet, peaceful moment after a long battle.

He’ll have to break this one eventually, though, and after a few minutes, he does.

“How are your hands?” he asks.

Docile, Kiran offers him one. Alfonse takes it gently, hyperaware of the difference in their sizes: his warrior's build, Kiran's delicate form. The scars are on their hands are still there: little things that twist and turn their way in webs up from Kiran’s fingers to their hands, their arms, all the way up (Alfonse knows) to their shoulders and out onto their narrow chest, even. Like the crazing on the ceramic flesh of an old, well-used doll.

Alfonse feels a kinship with Kiran because of these scars, because he has some of his own. Jagged patches of skin leeched of colour, in the form of the gems crusting Fólkvangr’s hilt, on his arms, on his legs, on his chest, on his back. Every time he uses Fólkvangr to take the life of his enemies, it takes something from him, too, leaves him shivering and _cold_. 

Breidablik and Fólkvangr, divine weapons both, demand much of their users. Mortal bodies are not built to use the weapons the gods themselves are said to have wielded—that’s always been true. Still. _Still_.

“You went to see Priscilla like I told you to?” Alfonse asks, staring at the tips of Kiran’s fingers, blackened like the skin of a corpse undergoing putrefaction. This is new, and now that he knows what Kiran is, it’s all the more distressing. Only a year, and Kiran’s already starting to…fall apart. Breidablik, like that old god, is devouring its own child.

“Yes. She can’t do anything. She won’t be able to do anything.”

Alfonse looks up, surprised by this rare volubility. “You don’t know that. These Heroes from other worlds, perhaps they’ll—”

“No,” Kiran says. Their face is set and emotionless. “It doesn’t matter, Alfonse. Even if I lose the use of my hands, I’ll…still be able to summon.”

“That’s not why I’m trying to help you. You know that,” Alfonse says, voice full of quiet reproach. “Whether or not you’ll be able to summon is not what I care about. Gods know we have a number of powerful Heroes already.”

Kiran hasn’t yet taken their hand away, so Alfonse grips it tightly. He thinks of Zacharias, and the hurt that had so blindsided him after his disappearance, as though the gods had hollowed him with their own hands.

“We’ll figure this out,” Alfonse says. “You and I. Not just for you, but for me, too. My sister. Anna. All right?”

A moment passes. Then: “As you will,” replies Kiran. 

Well, that’s all Alfonse can ask for right now. He folds his other hand over Kiran’s, and says, “I think I’ll stay for a bit longer. They won’t miss me.”

Kiran looks down at their joined hands, and then up at Alfonse once again. “Whatever you want,” they say, after yet another pregnant pause. “I…don’t mind.”

And it’s enough, being able to share a moment of solitude with them. For now, it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> I posted this originally on r/fireemblemheroes, for a weekly fanfic thread. (I'm delhuillier there as well—creative, eh?) I put this here, because...well, because perhaps other people might like to read it.


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